Wauwatosa fireplace repair

Fireplace Repair? For Safety’s Sake, You Could Need a Fireplace Replacement

Many things can happen during building of a Wauwatosa home – not all desirable.

A new Wauwatosa house has myriad working components. Some need very specific installations to work safely and efficiently. House builders, while skilled at many things, are not always experts in the precise installations of every mechanical element.

Enclosed fireplaces are often one. While desired for their comfy ambiance and effective room heating, wrong installation of fireplace inserts can cause risks that threaten life and home: carbon monoxide escaping. Smoke backup. Live embers leaping onto outside surfaces.

Safety concerns with a fireplace insert are often identified during a fireplace inspection and cleaning in Wauwatosa. Periodically a fireplace repair is not possible. If the fireplace is compromised, a total fireplace replacement is required.

Regular fireplace inspections are always advisable, for both safety and operational efficiency. Hiring a professional service such as Butler Chimneys, your fireplace and chimney inspection company in Wauwatosa, ensures that a fireplace is working correctly and your family protected.

Safety problems can be identified with both gas and wood-burning fireplaces. More regularly than not, the reason is improper installation. Typically a problem isn’t identifiable from outside the fireplace – a closer look inside, by a trained eye, identifies a compromised joint, section or non-working part.

If a part can be replaced, it must be swapped out with the duplicate manufacturer’s part. Aftermarket parts are infamous for creating issues such as smoke backup, or exhaust not drafting correctly. If a fireplace ignites a house fire, insurance coverage could be denied if substitute aftermarket parts were used.

Often, though, conditions require a complete fireplace replacement. A box with rust is immediately identified as unsafe. If a fan stops functioning, replacement is not a choice. A degraded refractory panel must be replaced.

In these situations, the entire fireplace system should be taken out, along with the nearby façade. It’s a multi-day undertaking for professionals such as Butler Chimneys. The work creates a window, though, for a homeowner to pursue improvements they might have already thought about.

Many use the moment to change over from wood burning to gas. Though not possessing the heat production of wood, gas is far more user friendly (and less labor intensive) as fuel.

Others might choose an open wood-burning fireplace, rather than enclosed. While a net minus for warmth, this design has traditional aesthetics that many find charming. An open fireplace is far less expensive, too – typically one-third the cost of a replacement insert.

The façade buttressing the fireplace can be totally reworked, as well. Tile, stone or brick veneer, or composite wood are popular choices. The hearth might be redone in limestone, tile, brick or stone. The mantle can be reworked to look like steel or wood.

Fireplaces are a desirable feature in Wauwatosa homes for many reasons. Realistically, these benefits come with possible hazards that shouldn’t be overlooked. So don’t – contact Butler Chimneys for fireplace and chimney inspection and cleaning and, if needed, changing a fireplace insert. Just because work wasn’t done right the first time, doesn’t mean you have to co-exist with its risks.